page_title: 8th Armoured Brigade (United Kingdom)
section_title: Operation Supercharge
hierarchical_section_title: 8th Armoured Brigade (United Kingdom) / North Africa / Operation Supercharge
caption_attribution_description: Second Battle of El Alamein, Deployment of Forces on October 23rd, 1942
context_page_description: The 8th Armoured Brigade was an armoured brigade of the British Army formed in August 1941, during the Second World War and active until 1956. The brigade was formed by the renaming of 6th Cavalry Brigade, when the 1st Cavalry Division based in Palestine converted from a motorised formation to an armoured unit, becoming 10th Armoured Division.
context_section_description: In February 1942, the 8th Armoured Brigade moved to the Khatatba region of the Western Desert. After a period of training, the Brigade first went into action at the end of August 1942 at Bir Ridge at the Battle of Alam el Halfa. The Second Battle of El Alamein lasted from 23 October to 5 November 1942 and was a watershed in the Western Desert Campaign. the Allied victory at El Alamein ended Axis hopes of occupying Egypt, controlling access to the Suez Canal and gaining access to Middle Eastern oil fields. The defeat at El Alamein marked the end of Axis expansion in Africa. Following the First Battle of El Alamein, which had stalled the Axis advance, Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery took command of the British Eighth Army from Claude Auchinleck in August 1942.
  For the first night of the offensive, Montgomery planned that four infantry divisions from Lieutenant-General Oliver Leese's XXX Corps would advance on a 16 miles (26 km) front, to an objective codenamed the Oxalic Line, over-running the forward Axis defences. The Royal Engineers would clear and mark two lanes through the minefields, through which the armoured divisions from Lieutenant-General Herbert Lumsden's X Corps would pass to gain the Skinflint Report Line, where they would check and report their progress, and the Pierson Bound, where they would rally and temporarily consolidate their position in the Axis defences until the infantry battle had been won. Commanded by Brigadier Edward C. N. Custance, the 8th Armoured Brigade was equipped with 24 × Crusaders, 57 × Grants and 31 × Shermans when it took part in Operation Supercharge, better known as the Battle of El Alamein.
caption: Location of 10th Armoured Division on the eve of battle.
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